"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor totolerateany error as long as reason is leftfree to combat it." — Thomas Jefferson (re U. of Virginia, 1820)

CONTRARY TO CONVENTIONAL SPIN, it's not "Main Street" versus "Wall Street" (whatever that means); it's Madison Avenue and K Street versus the people of the United States. It's University Avenue and spin control vs. the less urban and less "urbane"; the Sophists v. the practical and the common-sensical.

This column doesn't waste much time on conspiracy theories. With "conspiracies" you have to do a lot of guessing, but in my column I just tell you what I know for sure. The only conspiracies I'm sure of are education's efforts at dumbing down society, and the mainstream media's attempts to hide the President's true agenda.

If President Clinton was slick, Prez 44 is somewhere between slippery and clumsy (clumsy because he contradicts himself). Clinton really wanted most people to believe him, but Oboma doesn't care if the majority doesn't believe him; he only needs 51.1% of those who bother to vote to believe that what he says "sounds" about right!

He doesn't care if he's lost most of the Independents and a lot of women; he thinks he has consolidated enough power in the dependent underclass to make him presidente-for-life (if all else fails, just call out the New Black Panthers and brown shirts — the "Civilian Security Force" he promised in 2008 and that, about which, the news media failed to ask any questions. It's beginning to look like the Million Man March has been "changed" into the 5,000-man posse with a one million dollar bounty on an American citizen "wanted dead or alive").

No, no, no. This President isn't "in over his head." His head is exactly where he wants it to be. If Clinton was a used car salesman, this guy is like a beer vendor — all over the ball park — but in his heart and in his fantasies he's in left field all the time and proud of it! More Juvenal than Jeffersonian.

"REASON?" What's reason got to do with it? LBJ's favorite scripture was "Come let us reason together" although he was as tone-deaf as any other liberal. Token liberal on Fox, Bob Beckel, has admitted that liberals made "mistakes" with the Great Society but that "we did it for the right reasons." I don't know if he was serious or being partly facetious.

And look where we are: Lefties are openly threatening to burn down Detroit again if the Governor gets too serious about solving Detroit's fiscal fiasco. It was about a year after the Civil Rights Act passed that Detroit burned — a result of the Law of Rising Unrealistic Expectations.

Speaking of that, Prez 44 was going to lower the sea levels, but on his first day in office (I think), he decided that Prez 43 had made that job more difficult than he had thought it would be.

This week, while most people following the Supreme Court, I was not about to be distracted by anything from the energy issues. The greatest presentation of the week was by Senator Coburn on the Senate floor regarding oil and natural gas, and the Administration's attack on that vital industry. Coburn pointed out that one reason gas prices are rising is because crude oil is traded in dollars — and our deficits are indirectly driving up prices.

The value of our dollar in relation to exchange rates for other currencies, as well as the general purchasing power of a dollar, are both declining. Therefore, Americans have to pay more "dollars" when they buy crude oil, and gas at the pump. These problems are compounded by the White House anti-oil policies. Federal lands are not to be "pin pricked" by drills. Shoot, we can't even build new logging roads that might help the Forest Service fight fires that they started.

On Friday I watched a Senate committee hearing on the world oil market. Some Senators insinuated that there's a conspiracy by speculators to artificially drive up the price of crude. One analyst replied that if that were the case, refiners would cut back their orders for unreasonably priced oil and we'd soon see a glut of crude on the market (but what's "reason" got to do with it when the Administration wants European-style gas prices anyway).

That's why this columnist doesn't waste time on (most) conspiracies. I didn't just get kicked off the turnip truck, y'know. I will only tell you the things I know for sure. And there are only a couple of conspiracies that I'm SURE of: the efforts of Education at dumbing down the general population, and (b) the attempt by lefty politicians to weaken America by increasing our dependence upon foreign oil (it's a war on all of our natural resources). The same week the Prez was demonizing oil "profits" — which are a lot less than some other industries — his EPA was outlawing any future coal-fired power plants.

When coal plants are outlawed, maybe only outlaws will build them.

P.S. Don't take my word about the causes of the high gas prices. The Truth is on the Internet just as much as the phony spins. Try this site, for an example of the Truth:

"And we just have had a new study issued by the Federal Trade Commission. They spent over a year looking at this topic, and ... the conclusion is not going to sit well with folks who like to talk about speculation, manipulation. Because what the Federal Trade Commission concluded was that the basic reason why on trend we have seen an increase in gas and oil prices is due to just plain old economic supply and demand . . . "

Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. In the intro to The Fenton Bible, Fenton said:

"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."

In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]